Privacy-counscious advertising

ABSTRACT

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related network element including one or more of the following: receiving a plurality of advertisement messages via the communications network, each advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages including a set of meta-information which describes the content of an advertisement associated with the advertisement message; determining whether each advertisement message is relevant to the user by comparing the set of meta-information to a set of user preferences associated with the user, the set of user preferences stored locally on the user node; when an advertisement message is determined to not be relevant to the user, discarding the advertisement message; and when an advertisement message is determined to be relevant to the user, providing the user with access to the advertisement associated with the advertisement message.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to electronic advertisementdissemination.

BACKGROUND

Since the advent of the Internet, advertising has been one of the mostattempted methods of capitalizing on the ever-growing number of userssurfing the web. Through placing a banner on a website or sendinggeneric emails out to a mailing list, advertisers attempt to make theirpitches to millions of users in one fell swoop. Any advertisement,regardless of content, can draw in considerable amounts of businesssimply through the massive amounts of exposure afforded by the Internet.

While Internet advertising is cheap and effective, corporations areconstantly searching for ways to boost the return on each dollar spent.Recent times have seen the introduction of targeted advertising in anattempt to further increase the efficiency of each advertisement. Byviewing a user's browsing history, personal information, and other data,an advertising entity can select advertisements that are more likely toappeal to the user. By only displaying advertisements that a user wouldlikely find interesting, the advertising entity can greatly increase thechances that a user seeing an advertisement will actually purchase theadvertised product or service.

For example, when displaying ads to a user known to be a 20-year-oldmale, the advertising entity can skip showing advertisements forhandbags and body lotion and instead display an advertisement for thecurrent year's iteration of a college football video game. From theinformation known about the user, it is more likely that the user wouldbe interested in, and therefore buy, the video game. Thus, theadvertising entity has increased the efficiency of the video gameadvertisement, while avoiding wasting the user's time and theadvertisers' money with the other two advertisements.

Many users, seeing an encroachment on their personal privacy, balk atthis form of advertising and resist the idea of a corporation havingaccess to any personal information that they have not explicitlyprovided. These users would prefer that all information about them bekept secret until they decide that such information should be revealed.Further, while a user may choose to reveal some personal information, itis likely that they would never choose to reveal all of their personalinformation even though such a disclosure would enable advertisingentities to best target their advertisements. Accordingly, there is aneed for a system that may direct advertisements to users based on allavailable personal information, while ensuring a maximum level orprivacy.

The foregoing objects and advantages of the invention are illustrativeof those that can be achieved by the various exemplary embodiments andare not intended to be exhaustive or limiting of the possible advantagesthat can be realized. Thus, these and other objects and advantages ofthe various exemplary embodiments will be apparent from the descriptionherein or can be learned from practicing the various exemplaryembodiments, both as embodied herein or as modified in view of anyvariation that may be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly,the present invention resides in the novel methods, arrangements,combinations, and improvements herein shown and described in variousexemplary embodiments.

SUMMARY

In light of the present need for a system that may direct advertisementsto users based on all available personal information while ensuring amaximum level or privacy, a brief summary of various exemplaryembodiments is presented. Some simplifications and omissions may be madein the following summary, which is intended to highlight and introducesome aspects of the various exemplary embodiments, but not to limit thescope of the invention. Detailed descriptions of a preferred exemplaryembodiment adequate to allow those of ordinary skill in the art to makeand use the inventive concepts will follow in later sections.

Various exemplary embodiments relate to a method and related networkelement including one or more of the following: receiving a plurality ofadvertisement messages via the communications network, eachadvertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messagesincluding a set of meta-information which describes the content of anadvertisement associated with the advertisement message; determiningwhether each advertisement message is relevant to the user by comparingthe first set of meta-information to a set of user preferencesassociated with the user, the set of user preferences stored locally onthe user node; when an advertisement message is determined to not berelevant to the user, discarding the advertisement message; and when anadvertisement message is determined to be relevant to the user,providing the user with access to the advertisement associated with theadvertisement message.

It should be apparent that, in this manner, various exemplaryembodiments enable the provisioning of privacy-conscious targetedadvertising. In particular, by storing the user's preferences locallyand comparing them to the meta-information contained in each receivedadvertisement message, a user node may determine the advertisementmessage's relevance to the user. Thus, various exemplary embodimentsenable the user to receive targeted advertisements while revealing aminimal amount of personal information to others.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to better understand various exemplary embodiments, referenceis made to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary network for providingprivacy-conscious advertising;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary data arrangement used tostore information for each advertisement to be disseminated;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary data arrangement forstoring the preferences of each user at a central node;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary method for determining whatadvertisements to present to a user; and

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an alternative view of an exemplarynetwork for providing privacy conscious advertising.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring now to the drawings, in which like numerals refer to likecomponents or steps, there are disclosed broad aspects of variousexemplary embodiments.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary network 100 for providingprivacy-conscious advertising. Network 100 includes a user node 110, acommunications network 130, and an advertising node 140. Network 100 mayalso include a user display 120 and a number of seeder-peers 150, 160.

User node 110 may be a device that provides a user with advertisementsdetermined to be relevant to the user. More specifically, in variousexemplary embodiments, user node 110 is a personal or laptop computer,wireless email device, cell phone, or any other device capable ofdisplaying advertisements and connecting to communications network 130.User node 110 may include a processor 112, storage 115, and networkinterface 117. User node 110 may further be connected to a user display120.

Processor 112 may be a conventional microprocessor, a Field ProgrammableGate Array (FPGA), or any other component configured to execute a seriesof instructions to control the interoperation of storage 115, networkinterface 117, and user display 120.

Storage 115 may be any machine-readable medium capable of storing userpreferences and a number of advertisement messages received viacommunications network 130. User preferences may include a set ofkeywords or content descriptors that describe the content areas in whichthe user is interested.

Network interface 117 may be an interface comprising hardware and/orexecutable instructions encoded on a machine-readable storage mediumconfigured to transmit and receive data over communications network 130.Network interface 117 may be used to receive advertisement messagesand/or transmit user preferences.

User display 120 may a device connected to user node 110 and may be usedto communicate an advertisement, such as advertisements 122, 127 to theuser. More specifically, user display 120 may include any combination ofa monitor, speakers, printer, or any other device capable ofcommunicating an advertisement to a user. User display 120 may beseparate from user node 110 or may constitute a component of user node110, such as, for example, a screen on a laptop or cell phone. Anadvertisement may include any combination of video, audio, text,graphics, hyperlinks, or any other method of communicating with a userknown to those of skill in the art. It should be noted that the term“display” as used herein refers to any method of communicating anadvertisement to a user.

Communications network 130 may be any network for providing datacommunications between user node 110, advertising node 140, andseeder-peers 150, 160. Communications network 130 may be packet-switchedor circuit switched. Further, communications network 130 may provide,for example, phone and Internet service to various user devices incommunication with communications network 140.

Advertising node 140 may be a device for disseminating advertisementmessages in exemplary network 100 and may be operated by an advertisingentity such as, for example, a product manufacturer, an advertisingagency, an advertisement aggregator, or an advertisement disseminator.More specifically, advertising node 140 may be a server, personal orlaptop computer, or any other device capable of constructing andtransmitting advertisement messages via communications network 130.Advertising node 140 may include a processor 142, storage 145, andnetwork interface 147.

Processor 142 may be a conventional microprocessor, a Field ProgrammableGate Array (FPGA), or any other component configured to execute a seriesof instructions to control the interoperation of storage 145 and networkinterface 147.

Storage 145 may be any machine-readable medium capable of storing userpreferences and information regarding a number of advertisement messagesto be disseminated via communications network 130. The manner in whichuser preferences and advertisement information are stored in storage 145will be discussed in greater detail below with reference to FIGS. 2-3.

Network interface 147 may be an interface comprising hardware and/orexecutable instructions encoded on a machine-readable storage mediumconfigured to transmit and receive data over communications network 130.Network interface 147 may be used to transmit advertisement messagesand/or receive user preferences from user node 110.

Seeder-peers 150, 160 may be devices operated by other users that aid inthe dissemination of advertisement messages. Seeder-peers 150, 160 maybe other user nodes, operating in a manner similar to user node 110, orthey may be devices specifically configured for the dissemination ofadvertisement messages. More specifically, in various exemplaryembodiments, any seeder-peer 150, 160 may be a cell phone, personal orlaptop computer, wireless email device, or any other device thatsupports peer-to-peer transfers of data. For example, seeder-peers150,160 may be configured to receive and transmit data according to anyP2P protocol known to those of skill in the art, including, but notlimited to, BitTorrent, Gnutella, and Fast Track or a protocol specificto the operation of exemplary network 100. Alternatively, seeder-peers150,160 may not be present and advertisement messages may be transmittedaccording to a non-P2P protocol.

Having described the components of network 100, a brief summary of theoperation of network 100 will be provided. It should be apparent thatthe following description is intended to provide an overview of theoperation of network 100 and is therefore a simplification in somerespects. The detailed operation of network 100 will be described infurther detail below in connection with FIGS. 2-5.

According to various exemplary embodiments, a user at user node 110 maymanually enter personal information or user node 110 may automaticallygather personal information for storage in storage 115. User node 110may further receive a number of advertisement messages 172, 175, 177 viacommunications network 130, the advertisement messages 172, 175, 177being sent by either advertising node 140 or one or more seeder-peers150, 160. Each advertisement message 172, 175, 177 may containmeta-information describing the content of an advertisement associatedwith the advertisement message 172, 175, 177. For each advertisementmessage 172, 175, 177, user node 110 may compare the meta-information tothe locally-stored user preferences to determine if the advertisementmessage 172, 175, 177 is relevant to the user. User node 110 may thenfetch and display only those advertisements associated withadvertisement messages 172, 175, 177 deemed relevant via user display120.

For example, in exemplary network 100, user node 110 has receivedadvertisement messages 172, 175, 177, each associated withadvertisements “A,” “B,” and “C,” respectively. By locally comparing themeta-information contained in each advertisement message 172, 175, 177to the user preferences stored in storage 115, user node 110 determinesthat advertisement messages 172, 177 are relevant to the user, whileadvertisement message 175 is not. Accordingly, user node 110 displaysonly advertisements “A” 122 and “C” 127 via user display 120. In thismanner, the user is presented with highly-targeted advertisements eventhough no personal information has been revealed outside of user node110.

The user preferences stored in storage 115 may be obtained in variousmanners. For example, the user may manually enter or select a number ofkeywords or descriptors that identify the areas in which the user isinterested. Alternatively, the user may enter personal information suchas, for example, gender, age, and occupation. Using this personalinformation, user node 110 may automatically determine which areas theuser is likely to be interested in. As a further alternative, user nodemay automatically determine the user's areas of interest by monitoringinformation such as, for example, browsing history, music librarycontents, or advertisements clicked on. Any combination of the describedmethods may be used, as well as any other method known to those of skillin the art.

The meta-information contained in advertisement messages 172, 175, 177may be of any format capable of describing the content of theadvertisements associated with advertisement messages 172, 175, 177. Forexample, the meta-information might use simple keywords or other subjectidentifiers. Under this embodiment, the meta-information ofadvertisement message 172 may include, for example, the keyword“computers.” If the user preferences in storage 115 also contain thekeyword “computers,” user node 110 will deem advertisement message 172relevant to the user.

Alternatively, the meta-information might include descriptors from apre-arranged hierarchy or ontology of descriptors. This alternativemethod allows for more robust advertisement matching to be performed atuser node 110. For example, under either of these embodiments, themeta-information of advertisement message 172 might still include thedescriptor “computers,” but the user preferences in storage may onlycontain the descriptor “electronics.” User node 110 would recognize“computers” as being a subclass of “electronics” and thus deemadvertisement message 172 relevant to the user.

As a further example of the robustness of using hierarchical orontological descriptors, advertisement message 172 might still includethe descriptor “computers,” but the user preferences in storage may onlycontain the descriptor “video games.” Here, while neither descriptor isa subclass of the other, user node 110 may recognize the two descriptorsas belonging to the same major class or domain, “electronics” forexample, and again deem advertisement message 172 relevant to the user.

Advertisement messages 172, 175, 177 may be disseminated in apeer-to-peer (P2P) manner. For example, advertising node 140 mayinitially send each advertisement message 172, 175, 177 to at least oneseeder-peer 150, 160. After receiving an advertisement message 172, 175,177, seeder-peers 150, 160 may then operate to send the advertisementmessage 172, 175, 177 to any other user nodes in exemplary network 100that have not yet received the advertisement message 172, 175, 177, suchas user node 110. In this manner, the bandwidth costs of sendingadvertisement messages to each user node 110 may be distributedthroughout exemplary network 100. Alternatively, advertising node 140may send each advertisement message to each user node 110 directly, thusremoving the need for seeder-peers 150, 160.

To reduce bandwidth usage, advertisement messages 172, 175, 177 may notinclude the actual advertisement to be displayed. Instead, eachadvertisement message 172, 175, 177 may include only meta-informationand an identifier of the advertisement. The identifier may be a UniformResource Identifier (URI) or any other identifier that may be associatedwith advertising content. Upon determining that a particular advertisingmessage 172, 175, 177 is relevant, user node 110 may provide the userwith a link to the advertisement or may automatically retrieve theadvertisement for display. Alternatively, each advertisement message172, 175, 177 may carry the advertisement to be displayed and, upondetermining that an advertisement message 172, 175, 177 is relevant,user node 110 may simply display the advertisement carried by theadvertisement message 172, 175, 177.

According to various exemplary embodiments, the user may choose toreveal some or all of their user preferences. The advertising node 140and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 are then able to refrain from sendingadvertisements to user node 110 that are sure to be irrelevant to theuser. This reduces the overall bandwidth consumed in exemplary network100 and processing performed by user node 110. Specifically, bycomparing the meta-information of an advertisement message to the subsetof user preferences revealed by the user, the advertising node 140and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 may determine whether an advertisementwould certainly be irrelevant to the user and thus not transmit theirrelevant advertisement to user node 110. Alternatively, by revealinginformation, the user may subscribe to a number of streams ofadvertisement messages that only carry advertisements according to therevealed preferences. For example, by revealing an interest in thekeyword “electronics,” the user might enter a BitTorrent swarm, or otherP2P grouping, devoted exclusively to advertisements relating toelectronics.

Various exemplary embodiments provide for high-level filtering ofrevealed preferences in order to further ensure privacy. Under theseembodiments, the subset of user preferences revealed to advertising node140 and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 cannot be understood by the receivingdevice. For example, a method of secure computation may be used to allowfor to advertising node 140 and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 to process arevealed subset of user preferences without the ability to determinewhat those user preferences actually are. Other zero-knowledgenesstechniques will be apparent to those of skill in the art. By using suchhigh level filtering, a user may request that only certain types ofadvertisements be sent to their user node without revealing personalinformation in a manner that can be understood by another.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary data arrangement 200 usedto store information for each advertisement to be disseminated. Dataarrangement 200 may be, for example, a table in a database stored instorage 145 of advertising node 140. Alternatively, data arrangement 200could be a series of linked lists, an array, or a similar datastructure. Thus, it should be apparent that data arrangement 200 is anabstraction of the underlying data; any data structure suitable forstorage of this data may be used.

Data arrangement 200 may include numerous sets of data: identifier field210, meta-information field 220, ad content field 230, and expirationfield 240. Identifier field 210 may include a URI or some other means ofuniquely identifying an advertisement.

Meta-information field 220 may include a set of one or more identifiersthat describe the content of an advertisement. These identifiers may bekeywords, hierarchical descriptors, ontological descriptors, or anyother descriptor known to those of skill in the art.

Ad content field 230 may contain the actual advertisement data that isto be displayed by user node 110. Alternatively, ad content field 230may not be present in data arrangement 200. In such an alternativeembodiment, the advertisement data may instead be located on a nodeother than advertising node 140 and may accessible through a URI or anyother means for requesting data specified by an identifier known tothose of skill in the art.

Expiration field 240 may include an indication of an expiration date,after which the associated advertisement is no longer valid and shouldnot be disseminated and/or displayed. The expiration date may beexpressed in any manner known to those of skill in the art, such as, forexample, time to live or Unix time. The expiration date may further beincluded in each advertisement message 172, 175, 177 and might be usedby the advertising node 140 and seeder-peers 150, 160 to prioritize theorder in which advertisement messages 172, 175, 177 are transmitted. Theexpiration date may also be used by user node 110 to prioritize theorder in which advertisement messages 172, 175, 177 are processed forpotential relevance. Alternatively, expiration field 240 may not bepresent and advertisements may remain valid indefinitely or until thecorresponding advertisement record is removed from storage 145.

As an example, advertisement record 250 indicates than an advertisementidentified by the string “4Jg32x” is to be disseminated. Theadvertisement is associated with a set of two pieces ofmeta-information, the keywords “video games” and “computers.” Further,the content of the advertisement is represented in hexadecimal as“0x6B9939F2 . . . ” and the advertisement expires at Unix time“1740960000.”

Advertisement record 260 indicates than an advertisement identified bythe string “H680nD” is also to be disseminated. The advertisement isassociated with a set of only one piece of meta-information, the keyword“canned food.” Further, the content of the advertisement is representedin hexadecimal as “0x754B059A . . . ” and the advertisement expires atUnix time “1356048000.” Data arrangement 200 may contain numerousadditional advertisement records 270.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary data arrangement 300 forstoring the preferences of each user at a central node, such asadvertising node 140. Data arrangement 300 may be, for example, a tablein a database stored in storage 145. Alternatively, data arrangement 300could be a series of linked lists, an array, or a similar datastructure. Thus, it should be apparent that data arrangement 300 is anabstraction of the underlying data; any data structure suitable forstorage of this data may be used. In various embodiments utilizing a P2Pprotocol for advertisement dissemination, in order to ensure delivery ofadvertisement messages in accordance with revealed preferences,seeder-peers 150, 160 may also store a copy of data arrangement 300 orseeder-peers 150, 160 may be coordinated or otherwise controlled byadvertising node 140. In various embodiments, advertising node 140and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 may not store user preferences at all and,thus, data arrangement 300 is not present in either storage 145 ofadvertising node 140 or seeder-peers 150, 160.

Data arrangement 300 may include numerous sets of data: user id field310 and preferences field 320. User id field 310 may be an IP address,user name, or any other piece of information that may be used toidentify a particular user. Preferences field 320 may include a set ofzero or more identifiers that describe the content areas that aparticular user claims to have an interest in. These identifiers may bekeywords, hierarchical descriptors, ontological descriptors, or anyother descriptor known to those of skill in the art.

As an example, user record 330 indicates that the user at IP address202.85.67.158 has indicated an interest in the keyword “apparel.”Accordingly, advertising node 140 and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 willattempt to deliver “apparel”-related advertisement messages related tothe user at 202.85.67.158.

Likewise, user record 340 indicates that the user at IP address168.65.123.142 has indicated an interest in the keywords “electronics”and “entertainment.” Accordingly, advertising node 140 and/orseeder-peers 150, 160 will attempt to deliver “electronics”- or“entertainment”-related advertisement messages to the user at168.65.123.142.

User record 350 indicates that the user at IP address 187.102.52.146 hasnot chosen to reveal any portion of their user preferences. Accordingly,advertising node 140 and/or seeder-peers 150, 160 will deliveradvertising messages of any content type to the user at 187.102.52.146.Note that the user nodes for each of these users may continue to processeach received message according to the locally-stored full set of userpreferences to make the ultimate determination of relevance. Dataarrangement 300 may contain numerous additional user records 360.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of an exemplary method 400 for determining whatadvertisements to present to a user. Exemplary method 400 may beperformed by the components of user node 110 to determine the relevanceof each received advertisement message and display the relevantadvertisements.

Exemplary method 400 starts in step 405 and proceeds to step 410 whereuser node 110 receives an advertisement message via communicationsnetwork 130. Exemplary method 400 may then proceed to step 420.Alternatively, user node may additionally perform the steps of placingthe advertisement message in a buffer (not shown), reordering themessages according to their expiration dates (not shown), and/orselecting an advertisement message from the buffer to process forrelevance (not shown).

At step 420, user node 110 may compare the meta-information contained inthe advertisement message with the locally stored user preferences todetermine if the advertisement message is relevant to the user. Thiscomparison may include simply comparing the keywords in themeta-information to the keywords in the user preferences. Alternatively,user node 110 may refer to a predetermined hierarchy or ontology ofcontent descriptors to determine whether a particular advertisementmessage is relevant to the user.

Exemplary method 400 may then move to step 430 where, if theadvertisement message is determined to not be relevant to the user,exemplary method 400 moves on to step 440. At step 440, theadvertisement message may be discarded. Alternatively, user node 110 maystore the advertisement message so it may be processed again at a latertime if the user preferences change. Method 400 may then stop at step465.

If, instead, the advertisement message is determined to be relevant tothe user at step 430, method 400 may proceed to step 450. At step 450,the user node 110 may use the identifier in the advertisement message tofetch the corresponding advertisement, either from advertising node 140,another server (not shown) connected to communications network 130, orfrom memory in the case where the advertisement message contains theadvertisement itself. Method 400 may then move to step 460, where usernode 110 may display the fetched advertisement via user display 120. Asan alternative to steps 450, 460, user node 110 may perform the step ofproviding a link to the advertisement for the user to follow. Method 400may then stop at step 465.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of an alternative view of an exemplarynetwork 500 for providing privacy conscious advertising. Exemplarynetwork 500 includes user nodes A-C 110 a, 110 b, 110 c, communicationsnetwork 130, and advertising node 140. User node A 110 a may be locatedat 202.85.67.158, include the user preferences set {“blue pants”}, andcorrespond to user record 330 of exemplary data arrangement 300. Usernode B 110 b may be located at 168.65.123.142, include the userpreferences set {“audio systems”; “music”}, and correspond to userrecord 340 of exemplary data arrangement 300. User node C 110 c may belocated at 187.102.52.146, include the user preferences set {“videogames”}, and correspond to user record 350 of exemplary data arrangement300. User nodes A-C 110 a, 110 b, 110 c may be used by users A-C 510 a,510 b, 510 c, respectively.

For the purposes of demonstration, exemplary network 500 is configuredaccording to the embodiment in which advertisement messages are sentdirectly from advertising node 140 to user nodes 110 a-c. Storage 145 ofadvertising node 140 currently contains data arrangements 200,300, asdescribed above in connection with FIGS. 2-3.

Advertising node 140 begins by constructing an advertisement message 520according to advertisement record 250. Advertisement message 520includes the advertisement identifier “4Jg32x” and the meta-informationset “{video games; computers}.” Advertising node 140 then sendsadvertisement message 520 to user nodes B and C 110 b, 110 c.

Advertising node 140 does not send advertisement message 520 to usernode A 110 a because user A 510 a has previously indicated an interestonly in “apparel.” Thus, because advertisement message 520 is related to“video games” and “computers,” it would not be relevant to the user A510 a. Advertisement message 520 is sent to user node B 110 b becausethe revealed preferences stored in user record 340 include the keyword“electronics.” Both “video games” and “computers” are subsets of“electronics,” so advertising node 140 concludes that advertisementmessage 520 might be relevant to the user B 510 b. The advertisementmessage is also sent to user node C 110 c because user C 510 c has notrevealed any preferences, as shown by user record 350, indicating thatall advertisements should be sent to user node C 110 c for localprocessing.

When user node B 110 b receives advertisement message 520, it processesthe message for relevance. User node B 110 b will determine thatadvertisement message 520 is not relevant to user B 510 b becauseneither “video games” nor “computers” match either “audio systems” or“music.” User node B 110 b will then discard advertisement message 520.Note that even though advertisement message 520 matched the preferencespreviously revealed to advertising node 140 and stored in user record340, user node B 110 b still deemed advertisement message 520 irrelevantin light of the full set of locally-stored preferences for user B 510 b.

Likewise, when user node C 110 c receives advertisement message 520, itprocesses the message for relevance. Here, however, user node C willdetermine that advertisement message 520 is relevant to user C 510 cbecause there is a direct match of the keyword “video games” between themeta-information of advertising message 520 and the user preferencesstored at user node C 110 c. User node C 110 c will then request theadvertisement associated with advertisement identifier “4Jg32x” fromadvertising node 140 which will, in turn, respond with a messageincluding ad content “0x6B9939F2 . . . .” Finally, user node C 110 cwill display ad content “0x6B9939F2 . . . ” to user C 510 c.

According to the foregoing, various exemplary embodiments provide forprivacy-conscious, user-targeted advertising. In particular, by storingthe user's preferences locally and comparing them to themeta-information contained in each received advertisement message, auser node may determine the advertisement message's relevance to theuser. Accordingly, by determining locally what advertisements arerelevant to the user, the user is able to receive targetedadvertisements while revealing a minimal amount of personal informationto others.

It should be apparent from the foregoing description that variousexemplary embodiments of the invention may be implemented in hardwareand/or firmware. Furthermore, various exemplary embodiments may beimplemented as instructions stored on a machine-readable storage medium,which may be read and executed by at least one processor to perform theoperations described in detail herein. A machine-readable storage mediummay include any mechanism for storing information in a form readable bya machine, such as a network node (e.g. router or switch). Thus, amachine-readable storage medium may include read-only memory (ROM),random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storagemedia, flash-memory devices, and similar storage media.

Although the various exemplary embodiments have been described in detailwith particular reference to certain exemplary aspects thereof, itshould be understood that the invention is capable of other embodimentsand its details are capable of modifications in various obviousrespects. As is readily apparent to those skilled in the art, variationsand modifications can be affected while remaining within the spirit andscope of the invention. Accordingly, the foregoing disclosure,description, and figures are for illustrative purposes only and do notin any way limit the invention, which is defined only by the claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of providing privacy-conscious advertising to a user performed in a user node in a communications network, the method comprising: receiving a plurality of advertisement messages via the communications network, each advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages including a set of meta-information which describes the content of an advertisement associated with the advertisement message; determining whether each advertisement message is relevant to the user by comparing the set of meta-information to a set of user preferences associated with the user, the set of user preferences stored locally on the user node; when an advertisement message is determined to not be relevant to the user, discarding the advertisement message; and when an advertisement message is determined to be relevant to the user, providing the user with access to the advertisement associated with the advertisement message; receiving a selection from the user of a subset of the set of user preferences to reveal to a central entity; and transmitting a message to the central entity, the message including the subset of user preferences and indicating that the user node should only receive advertisement messages relevant to the subset of user preferences.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein: the set of meta-information for an advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages comprises a first identifier associated with a first area of interest; the set of user preferences comprises a second identifier associated with a second area of interest; and the step of determining whether an advertisement message is relevant to the user comprises comparing the first identifier to the second identifier.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step of determining whether an advertisement message is relevant to the user further comprises, when the first area of interest is a subset of the second area of interest, determining that the advertisement message is relevant to the user.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving the set of user preferences from the user.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein each advertisement message includes an advertisement identifier and the step of providing access comprises: retrieving an advertisement associated with the advertisement identifier via the communications network; and displaying the advertisement to the user.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the communications network is a peer-to-peer network.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the step of receiving a plurality of advertisement messages comprises receiving at least one advertisement message from a peer device via the peer-to-peer network.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein high-level filtering is used to prevent the central entity from recognizing areas of interest identified by the subset of user preferences.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein each advertisement message includes an expiration date and the plurality of advertisement messages is processed according to the order of the expiration dates of the advertisement messages contained therein.
 10. The method of claim 8, wherein the high-level filtering comprises a method of secure computation.
 11. A machine readable storage medium encoded with instructions for providing privacy-conscious advertising to a user of a user node in a communications network, the instructions comprising: instructions for establishing a set of user preferences associated with the user; instructions for receiving an advertisement message via the communications network, the advertising message including meta-information; instructions for determining whether the advertisement message is relevant to the user by comparing the meta-information to the set of user preferences; instructions for, when the advertisement message is not relevant to the user, discarding the advertisement message; instructions for, when the advertisement message is relevant to the user, providing the user with access to an advertisement associated with the advertisement message; instructions for receiving a selection from the user of a subset of the set of user preferences to reveal to a central entity; and instructions for transmitting a message to the central entity, the message including the subset of user preferences and indicating that the user node should only receive advertisement messages relevant to the subset of user preferences.
 12. The machine readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein: the meta-information for the advertisement message comprises a first identifier associated with a first area of interest; the set of user preferences comprises a second identifier associated with the second area of interest; and the instructions for determining whether the advertisement message is relevant to the user comprises instructions for comparing the first area of interest to the second area of interest.
 13. The machine readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein the advertisement message includes an advertisement identifier and the instructions for providing access comprise: instructions for retrieving an advertisement associated with the advertisement identifier via the communications network; and instructions for displaying the advertisement to the user.
 14. The machine readable storage medium of claim 11 wherein the communications network is a peer-to-peer network and the instructions for receiving an advertisement message comprise instructions for receiving an advertisement message from a peer device via the peer-to-peer network.
 15. The machine readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein high-level filtering is used to prevent the central entity from recognizing areas of interest identified by the subset of user preferences.
 16. An advertisement dissemination system in a communications network for providing privacy-conscious advertising, the system comprising: an advertisement node that transmits a plurality of advertisement messages via the communications network, each advertisement message including a set of meta-information; and a user node that: receives an advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages via the communications network, compares the set of meta-information of the advertisement message to a set of locally stored user preferences to determine whether the advertisement message is relevant to a user of the user node, discards the advertisement message when the advertisement message is not relevant to the user, provides the user with access to an advertisement associated with the advertisement message when the advertisement message is relevant to the user, and transmits a subset of the set of locally stored user preferences via the communications network to indicate that the user node should only receive advertisements relevant to the subset of user preferences; wherein the advertising node receives the subset of user preferences and prevents advertisement messages that are not relevant to the subset of user preferences from being transmitted to the user node.
 17. The system of claim 16 further comprising a seeder-peer that receives the advertisement message from the advertising node and transmits the advertisement message to the user node.
 18. The system of claim 16 wherein: each advertisement message of the plurality of advertisement messages further includes an advertisement identifier; and in providing the user with access to an advertisement, the user node: transmits a request for an advertisement associated with an advertisement identifier of the advertisement message via the communications network, receives the advertisement via the communications network, and displays the advertisement to the user.
 19. The system of claim 16, wherein each advertisement message further includes the advertisement.
 20. The system of claim 16, wherein high-level filtering is used to prevent the central entity from recognizing areas of interest identified by the subset of user preferences. 